Sunday, July 31, 2011

Been playing guard a lot the last while. My gaming friend has been painting up a storm lately and keeping me updated with trying out an airbrush for the first time. Thought I would share the photo's with everyone. I think its looking great!

Friday, July 29, 2011

Well, another loss. I'm off for the long weekend to spend some time with my family. Monday I plan to write up a battle report detailing my efforts to make this list work. Hindsight being 20/20 I believe the problem was with my own tactical errors made; rather, than the list itself. Going to keep on trucking and get a couple of more games in before I make any drastic changes. More to follow with photos and a detailed battle report...

The Guard MVP was the manticore. It just chewed me up when I got out of my transports to implement an attack. I got first turn and zoomed into position. The guard had a poor first turn and did very little to my tanks. Second turn the seer council was in position to multi-assault and immobilized a vendetta, chimera and wreaked a lemun russ tank. I did as I planned and unloaded the rest of my army behind the wedge I had set up with the seer council. Guard turn three, wiped out my seer council. Man o man was he able to poor a ton of shots into the unit. Part of the problem was poor rolling on my part (his vet squad took out 5 warlocks in their first rank second rank volley). They were cleaned up then by multitudes of heavy bolters. The farseer survived and turn three popped back into the wave serpent.

Even though the seer council was wiped out I still managed split his forces allowing the other elements of my list to focus on an isolated portion of his army. The game went to turn seven and I lost by one objective. What really hurt though was the multiple barrage templates from the manticore. His manticore took out a tank, 3 wraithguard and my storm guardian squad. Ouch.

Lessons learned. Next time I try out the list, I will prioritize the manticore as an initial target for my seer council. One thing I learned with the seer council was that If I managed to wedge them in close enough to his units during a multi-assault, he was unable to target them with his large blast templates without hitting his own units. Also, I think next time I will use singing spears to target a troop carrier of some sort to try and spill out the troops. That way the seer council has a squad it can multi-assault into in order to mitigate return fire. The Wraithguard did ok. My mistake with them was not using terrain available to take advantage of cover for his high strength low ap blast templates.

Over all I liked the way the list played even though I lost. The game was close and my original game plan worked to a limited extent. I was able to bottle neck his army using the seer council as a wedge and penned in his tanks with my wave serpents. If I was to make a change, I might drop a warlock from the seer council, a single avenger and the storm guardians warlocks singing spear to give the wraithguard a warlock with conceal. After the the seer council was wiped the farseer was able to dedicate his fortune ability to the wraithguard. I think conceal giving them a 5++ re rollable save would help them out a ton.

Unfortunately I did not have my camera with me so I don't think I'll write up a proper battle report. Next time (and there will be a next time) I play this list I will make sure to have my camera and write up a proper turn by turn battle report.

Thursday, July 14, 2011

I picked up the new storm of magic book. Looks like it would be a lot of fun. I've been wanting to try out fantasy ever since 8th came out. I figure this might be a good time to dive in. If I buy one box of saurus I can build the following 2k lizardman list.

Comes out to 2k total. I plan to take the lore of light. For my 500 points of monsters I'm looking at buying a carnosaur and a barebones steg. 100 points left over for weapon. Not sure how it will play but it will look cool. Plus I get to include a carnosaur along with a slann. I figure I would build my slann to go solo and leave the temple guard behind.

As an aside, it seems that if you want to hold a fulcrum with your slann you cannot take temple guard in the army. Rules conflict where the fulcrum only allows a wizard and/or mount to occupy a fulcrum, and that a temple guard must stay attached to a slann if both units are on the board.

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

My next list I'm going to play. After my last game, where I used a seer council for the first time, I've been thinking about how they would work with a squad of wraithguard acting in a supporting role. Going to test the following list out at 1.5k (could not find a way to squeeze them both in under this point level):

The way I picture the list working is based on my experience last game. I plan to rush with the seer council again, but this time keep all my units together to support the seer council as well. I'm excited to see how the wraithguard work with the seer council. I figure that they will present themselves as a bigger threat and draw fire away from the wraithguard. I think this will make the wraithguard's toughness 6 more impressive.

I plan to use the wraithguard as a mobile cover save for my troop choices. The seer council fleets into a multi assault, then the wraithguard set up in a position that best supports the seer council attack. I will spreed them out the entire 13 inches available. I plan then to disembark my guardians and avengers behind this screen as needed for anti-infantry or anti-tank assistance as needed (ie deal with survivors of my seer councils initial attack).

I dropped the fire prism for the falcon because at 1.5k I believe I need 3 scoring units over the extra fire power the prism(s) bring. The falcon will use the other wave serpents to keep it out of melta-range and provide limited support fire. Its role is to assure that at end game I have a least one scoring unit that can grab any objective.

Over all I'm optimistic on how the list will play out. I'm particularly hopeful that the wraithguard do well. In fact, I plan to run a good number of games using them: I want to make sure I test them out thoroughly. My biggest complaint about the Eldar is that, while strong for its day, the codex really only allows you a mono build. I hope that by giving the wraithguard an honest try, I might break out of the mold a bit. I also figure that not too many people would know exactly what they are facing when looking across at wraithguard. I'm hoping that they might actually catch a few people off guard...

I played against the guard player again and his list was largely the same as last week. The only real difference was that he mounted his entire platoon squad in chimera's. I got first turn and set up as seen above. The game was spearhead and 5 objectives. Ultimately the seer council was amazing. My biggest error was not striking in unison with my units. I spread out on first turn and ultimately that lost me the game. I managed to set up my wedge with the seer council but rather than bring the rest of my forces up behind, for some reason I decided to camp objectives right off the bat. Big mistake.

The Seer council essentially took on his entire list for three turns before they wiped. The death tally was 3 tanks and 1 squad that they took out. If I had my other units close by to support the seer council I likely would have done a lot better. The game was super fun though. Probably the funnest in a long time. It was also the first time I had ever used a seer council.

Man the seer council is great. They cut through the guard lines like a hot knife through butter. Next time I play I plan to beef them and my guardians up a bit and keep all my units close together. I'm thinking something like this:

With these changes I get some more staying power in my seer council with the extra warlock. Now, that I have a warlock in the guardian squad, they become a far better utility squad that can clean up isolated tanks or squads. The avengers are just there to put some anti-infantry shots in my attack to help support the warlocks.

I was amazed at how well the warlocks performed. They took a ton of damage plus their extreme threatening nature forced my opponent to focus fire on them for three turns. When I bring the army up above 1k I think I will add in another fire prism and a squad of wraithguard in a wave serpent. I have a feeling that wraithguard will work out well when close to a seer council as it would present another big threat that my opponent has to deal with when I launch my attack.

Anyway, good game even though I was tabled. As an aside, I've been slacking on the painting lately so hopefully my next post will be of some new painted mini's. I want to try my hand at painting up some warlocks.

About Me

I've recently picked up warhammer 40k and warhammer fantasy as a hobby after a 14 year hiatus. Currently I have three armies that I am working on. Eldar, Flesh Tearer's and Lizardmen. All three are at various stages of incompletion. The purpose of this blog will be to catalogue my progress as I assemble and paint my various armies. In addition I will discuss army lists, tactics and other aspects to this hobby as I continue to develop my armies.